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Review: Divergent

Young adult books-turned-films are the hottest new trend in Hollywood. After the success of The Twilight Saga and The Hunger Games, every studio tried to get their hands on the next hot tween novel and turn it into a billion dollar box-office success. For every Twilight and Hunger Games success story there’s more adaptations that have missed the mark. Mortal Instruments City of Bones, I Am Number Four, Cirque du Freak: The Vampires Assistant, and Beautiful Creatures to name a few.

Up next in the book-to-box-office challenge is Veronica Roth’s bestselling book Divergent – a story about a young woman living in a dystopian future.

The story follows Beatrice “Tris” Prior (Shailene Woodley) who lives in futuristic Chicago where people are divided by into factions based on their personalities: Abnegation (selfless), Erudite (intelligent), Candor (honest), Amity (peaceful), and Dauntless (brave). There’s also the “factionless” people who don’t have a faction and are treated worse than homeless people.

Tris was raised in Abnegation and lives with her parents (played by Tony Goldwyn and Ashley Judd) and her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort). When Tris goes to take her aptitude test before “Choosing Day”, she shows aptitudes from three different factions and is told her result are inconclusive.

Tris is instructed by the woman conducting her test to pick Abnegation on choosing day, instead she chooses Dauntless – they’re the protectors of the city who love to jump off trains and do parkour on buildings whenever they can. Picture a pack of teenage Marines after six cans of Red Bull.

Once Tris is in her new faction she learns she’s what is called Divergent. A Divergent is someone that doesn’t fit into any of the factions which makes them a threat. The best explanation the movie gives as to why divergents are a threat is because “they can’t be controlled”. Tris must keep being divergent a secret or be killed by Erudite leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet).

Not only does Tris have to worry about the d-word, she’s dealing with evil Dauntless trainer Eric (Jai Courtney) and bullying form fellow a initiate named Peter (Miles Teller). Tris does find help from another initiate Christina (Zoe Kravitz) and a some comfort from a Dauntless instructor named Four (Theo James).

The plot tries to have a serious tone with a political struggle between factions, ideas about individualism, governmental control, and purpose. Those ideas would be awesome to explore in a sci-fi action movie but in a YA movie they’re background noise to the movies real story: a young woman falling in love with a heartthrob. The chemistry between Woodley and James is rocky but James’ charisma is the only thing that keeps their awkward onscreen interactions from derailing the film. For example, every time Four touches Tris she reacts like he has the world’s most amazing hands. Apparently in the book it explains how Tris has never been touched by a boy before which makes perfect sense. Since that’s never explained in the film, those moments are unintentionally funny.

I could write another 1,000 words about how Tris’ even knew how to do her hair and makeup so quickly. One scene she’s got her hair pulled back in a ponytail and the next scene she looks like she got styled at Gene Juarez? I have questions – How did she get a makeup? Did Christina help her at all? Is there a faction for fashion? What faction would Kanye be in?

Even after the Tris’ makeover, the film is unnecessarily long. The combat training leader board watch go on a 20 minutes too long. The plot is as predictable as they come, so why spend so much time pretending Tris isn’t going to pass her training? Why spend so much time in the weird Matrix-y training sessions? That time would’ve been better spent explaining the world Divergent in because frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Head scratching moments aside, Divergent earned a bit of goodwill with some good action during the training sequence, well placed humor, and some very interesting sci-fi elements that showed potential for a good story. There are portions of the film that are more entertaining than they have any business being. The movie really started to feel like watchable YA material.

Sadly, those good elements just continue to go unsupported by the story, especially once the wheels fall off during the film’s final 35minutes. Divergent goes from a cool sci-fi teen story to a replica of every YA adaptation. It’s shocking how quickly the story dissolved into a teenage angst story. The final act finds a way to hit every formulaic YA plot point imaginable. It doesn’t help that end is so condensed, the mushy tween stuff feels like overkill.

Divergent is a film that’s going to appease its fan base and most likely earn three times its budget. If you’re going into this movie expecting something incredible, you may have to wait for the next YA film adaptation. I have a feeling another one is coming soon.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.